


Jacob 'Hass' Harley

by BabylonSabby



Category: Homestuck
Genre: AU???, Betaverse DirkJake, Bropa, Grief, Grieving, Loss, M/M, Sadstuck, Sort of????, dirkjake - Freeform, implied that Dirk has a form of mental illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-14
Updated: 2016-05-14
Packaged: 2018-06-08 10:03:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6850246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BabylonSabby/pseuds/BabylonSabby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dirk might be pushing 40, but he's still going to outlive his partner by years. Is he ready for it?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jacob 'Hass' Harley

**Author's Note:**

> **It’s a big issue they’d have to face, Bro and Gramps. I’m surprised nobody’s written about it yet. So I took it upon myself to do so.

You knew it was going to happen sooner or later. You told yourself that when he reminded you. And you felt comfortable in knowing it, but only because he was standing right there in front of you when he said it. He was fine. And he was warm and comforting when he held you. You were only at peace with the knowledge because you had nothing to fear in that moment. Everything was just peachy. 

 

But when he reminded you yet again, you were serious. Still smiling against his chest fondly, but serious.

 

“I know I’ll outlive you by years,” you answered him, “but I would rather have only known you a short while than never having known you at all. The impact you’ve had on my life and my happiness…have been exponential.”

 

He seemed thoughtful, but pleased with this response as he made the embrace considerably snugger. You didn’t mind. Better to be smooshed against this agey bohemouth than alone in your own bed staring at the ceiling until madness finally devoured you. That’s all you did before Harley showed up. You knew the end was coming. And you were waiting for it. Waiting with a snake’s coils around your neck.

 

And then he showed up and the coils disappeared. You left the puppet on your bed and found your way into this man’s instead.

 

“I’ve lived a good life, Dirk,” he said finally before his arms gave you a little breathing room. “I’ve lived the entire thing doing what I love and never faltering every time someone told me to stop. Even at the risk of my life ending prematurely. I’ve watched my children grow up. I’ve watched their children grow up. It’s been pretty eventful. But take you out of the equation…and it becomes…a little dim. Not nearly as bright and happy as my memories would have me believe.”

 

You smirked at that, lifting a hand to run your fingers along his hairline.  
“Glad I could be of service, old man.”

 

He mock-punched your jaw over that and you feigned defeat as you fell onto the bed with a dramatic flop. 

 

++++

It was the same night as any other night. You were oblivious and blind to the future, contentedly curled onto your side with Jake Harley’s arm wrapped around your waist. You imagined that while he was in Big Spoon Land and still conscious that he liked to compare the rhythms of your breaths until sleep finally took him. Hey, it’s what you did. And his inner workings were not that different from your own. You never noticed a problem. You didn’t even then. He was warm and just as oblivious as you. He did kiss the back of your neck once before you started to drift off. And by the sounds of his snores that would later jostle you awake, he was out like a light. Within a few moments more, you were, too. 

 

It was five in the morning when you woke up. It was becoming a habit you couldn’t stand that for whatever reason, your body decided to wake in the most gentlest of ways while still sleep deprived and none of that was okay. The gentle coming to did not match at all the exhaustion you felt. But it was bathroom time. Five o’ clock on the dot. Bathroom time. You got up, shuffled to the bathroom, did your business, and shuffled back. Same old, same old. On the bright side, Harley helped you sleep better. It wasn’t like the old days at all when paranoia nearly strangled you to the point of insomnia. You were pleasantly confident that once you crawled back into bed and curled back up against him that you’d be unconscious again within seconds.

 

But something was wrong when you did.

 

Your side of the bed was pretty warm, but Harley’s wasn’t.

 

And he was…too still. His face too lax.

 

“Har…” you croaked, your voice box not prepared for speech at all after the heavy sleep you just came from.

 

He didn’t so much as twitch.

 

“Har,” you said a little more loudly this time, your intent on waking him growing assertive.

 

You didn’t like that stillness. That chill in the air.

 

“Harley!” you finally shouted, leaning forward to give him a good shake. But he was stiff. Very stiff. And very still. And it took much more of an effort than it normally did.

 

That’s when your voice went from loud to mouse-like.

 

“Oh, no…”

 

As if on instinct, you reached for the arm folded at his chest that was once resting atop your rib cage. It was like the rest of him. Heavy.

 

A whimper was collecting at your throat when you moved it out of the way and bent low to press your ear up to his chest. You held it poised for quite some time, focusing on drowning out all other sounds. You couldn’t hear anything. Not even your own breathing. But that was the thing. With your ear against his chest, you should have been able to hone in on…something. And there was nothing there. It was as still and quiet as the rest of him. As if there was nothing inside at all.

 

You blindly leaped from the bed, a demon in the speed of your movements as you flew to get your cellphone from off the kitchen counter.

 

A few tries of dialing and the thing was pressed against your ear as you raced back upstairs.

 

Your voice was frantic enough to have surprised you at the sound of the operator’s voice on the other line.

 

“Y-yes, help! My boyfriend’s not breathing, he stopped breathing! I can’t get a heartbeat! Please, help!”

 

As the feminine voice on the other end asked for your address, you froze in realizing that they would have to get a helicopter to get over here. You gave it to her anyway and told her exactly that. You were on an island. 

 

“Please just be fast,” you begged. “I don’t care what they have to do to get here, but please let them be fast!”

 

“I’ve already dispatched someone,” said the voice. “They’re on their way right now. Do you want me to stay on the line while you wait?”

 

That was actually very nice of her to ask. And if you were anybody else, you’d have probably let her. You didn’t want to face your own anxiety. You didn’t want to be in this moment by yourself. But her voice was unfamiliar and you had to weather this storm. You had to stand it alone.

 

“No, I’ll be okay. Please, please hurry!”

 

You wondered if anyone else that called 911 prayed to the voice on the other end as if it were an omniscient, all powerful god. Cause’ that’s what she felt like in this moment. Detached, but necessary. And you were more afraid now than you had ever been in your entire life. Frantic. Desperate.

 

Harley taught you that.

 

He taught you how to cry.

 

The helicopter came. They carried his body into it and you followed like an ancient, broken, but loyal dog with its tail between its legs. 

 

The vitals were taken, producing nothing. But they took him to the emergency room anyway. And still you followed, silent save for the occasional worried question. You weren’t a stoic statue, or machine. You played your part well. The distraught boyfriend. And who cared if you outed the two of you in this small ass town? This was real. This was human. What was more human than this? You were fretting over your life partner. And you’d have been dead before you’d let anyone fault you for that.

 

He was in the emergency room. And you were waiting in the waiting room. You imagined if something like this were to ever happen that they’d let you mourn outside the door. But they didn’t. This is where you waited. In hospital Limbo. Not very dramatic or climatic. Not very fulfilling. But that was fucking life for you. You were here waiting for them to tell you whether he could have been saved or not. And though you were certain it was the latter, the part that made you love him was also the part that made you hopeful despite the odds. Despite that choking worry in your heart.

 

When someone finally did show up, it was the doctor himself. And he’d come to tell you that Jacob “Hass” Harley could not be revived. He was gone.  
He was pronounced dead having died in his sleep.

 

Your body didn’t shiver, at first. It didn’t weep. You were numb and just going along with whatever came out of the doctor’s mouth, but you weren’t really listening. Something about getting ready for a funeral to be held the following day and that he was sorry for your loss. He did give you a pat on the shoulder, seeming genuinely compassionate as he allowed you to follow him into the room where they had relocated him. 

 

This was the most ‘human’ thing you’d ever experienced. You felt normal. You were walking in a 'first class’ citizen’s shoes. Just as if you were a woman who’d just lost her husband. It was bizarre, but everything else was becoming a tunnel that you were meandering through. The hallway was a mouth that was swallowing you and the doctor at your side whole. The lights were blurring and everything was melting together.

 

“Here he is,” the doctor said, gesturing for you to approach the gurney.  
You did. 

 

You saw his feet first, then his arms and shoulders…and finally his placid face.  
Ghostly, irksome feelings of deja vu crept up on you now and again, and of all times it decided to once more. You got a flash of a boy in gold smothered in flowers. And you imagined flowers surrounding your lover all the same. That’s how you would have it, you decided. That’s how you wanted it to be.

 

“My Jake…" 

 

Your fingers grazed along the side of his face. There was still stubble there. It felt real. It felt the same now as it did when his heart was still beating. Except the flesh beneath it was more akin to rubber than living skin.

 

"Why did you leave me so soon?” you piqued at him. “I wasn’t ready.”

 

You should have been ready. You’ve had all this time to get ready. You knew walking into this relationship that this was going to happen. 

 

“You’re going to outlive me by years, Dirk,” you remembered him saying. The memory itself chanted over and over in your head. 

 

Years, you thought. You were going to be without him for years. You were going to feel naked, vulnerable, alone, and incomplete for years.

You were going to be alone with yourself for years. With only Jake’s memory to guide you off to sleep at night.

You felt the quiet and emptiness of the room. The doctor had already left. 

There was so much you wanted to say, but in the end none of it mattered. None of it could express the heaviness in your chest, nor the tears in your eyes. Even if Jake’s ears could have heard your words, it wouldn’t have been worth it. The only thing you felt you could do was the most genuine and that was to finally surrender to the pain that found you. Your body creaked and moaned, not your own anymore. And it wept and cried as you knelt by the gurney and lifted Jake just enough so that you could embrace him and bury your face into the nape of his neck. You remembered warmth where there was now cold. And his jovial voice was still ringing in your head as if your last conversation was just moments ago. You were going to lose that voice. You were going to lose that memory.

You allowed yourself to break and you cried for the first time in your life. 

++++

His body was surrounded in colorful flowers from all over the island. Not like the strange vision you had in your head, but it would do. It was like the old days again. You were burying Jake and all you could feel was the familiar pressure, the presence…of doom. That unusual foreboding that was intent on lingering until something akin to the apocalypse actually happened. And once again…you were alone.

You tried not to think of any of that.

You tried to stay positive.

Jake would have wanted you to remember the good times, so you did. If you were to take anything away from this relationship, what would it have been?

You liked sitting on the back porch with him. You each had your own rocking chairs. 

You even bonded with that dog of his and played fetch with him on occasion out in the field that was practically Jake’s back yard.

You liked those damned “adventures” he was always taking you on. More hiking trips than anything else. And you wondered how a man his age got around so well out in the woods. You wondered how you did and you were twice the younger. A jungle to you was made out of concrete, not trees.

And of course there was always the passion and intimacy that never died. He was insecure at times, could never understand how so late in the game he not only found another lover, but one considerably younger at that. 

The only thing you figured that would curb his worries on the matter was that, as you told him, you were just as good of friends as you were lovers. If there wasn’t a sense of comradery, you thought, there wouldn’t have been as much love as there was.

You had to be strong for him. It was going to be a very low time now. And you had to survive it. You had to get through it. It’s what he would have wanted. You could nurse that good feeling like a flower and watch it grow, watch it keep you alive so long as you kept taking care of it. You couldn’t think of the despair. You had to shut the door behind you and lock it so that it wouldn’t come back in.

Harley was with you. And he always would be.

**Author's Note:**

> I know most people wouldn't be so optimistic as Dirk is at the end of this. But I didn't want this to end in complete tragedy. I wanted to finish on a hopeful note.


End file.
